When I woke up from a dream of music, I still found myself in the rubble of dream. Yumegareki, rubble of dream, is named in phonetic association with "Yumenoki," dream notes written by Saint Myoue in thirteenth century. It recounts the dream of contrabass music on a cheerful tune. I listen mainly to the albums in the contrabass collection that I received last year from Sebastian Schaffmeister, a bassist in Germany.*If you have any comment, please send it to me via “Contact.”

contrabass solo／cd／émouvance／2010http://www.claude-tchamitchian.com【Yumegareki 038】The title, Another Childhood, reminded me of a word, “Infans.” Infans basically means a child before the acquisition of speech, to put it simply. But it may also refer to a child who doesn’t even know that he/she is a child or who cannot identify themself as an individual. In other words, infans may represent an incarnate body. All the songs here are addressed to someone in a form of bass music. A series of musical performance dedicated to someone goes beyond the intention of the performer, having an internal force of the music push something forward and exposing it there. This music seems to sit on the conflicting embodiment of “self” and “infans.” As I listened, I gradually retrieved my childlike innocence.

Children are just like music. They don’t just receive and listen to the music. Rather they are the living musical instruments. In the light that runs through the death, they start singing and keep on singing. They can sing because they live on light, although they are backed by the death. The deadly pitch dark is the birthplace of a song of the music and the song is the light. A ray of light provided by a song infuses life to children and helps them get out of their shell to start walking on their own feet. They will continue to live as long as they can find a single light, a single tone, or a single path for them, and live in the light by believing in it. But we cannot tell when they lose their light. They will develop the ego, or a light of selfhood, which may turn their eyes away from death. But their body continues to exist with a fear to live.

Listening to the music is an experience that awakens something in our memory. This awakened mobile substance doesn’t have a name. Sound can be an indescribable, permeating, and intermingling shadow of death. But a song emerges, being tied up at the border of the world and destined to disappear. The song is the voice of the living dead. Music gets to its feet out of the chaos as a song. Then, the song begins to take steps in the space time. Sound becomes the shadow of the song and the gravity of the sound pushes the song back. But still, the song survives, resisting the sound and creating time. Chaos supports song here and there, trying to screen song and reduce it to nothing. Time suspended by the song’s independent movements attracts a distant memory of vivid nostalgia as an afterimage of the death. Song communicates with nostalgia through death in an enormous ecstasy.

Being a child, I somehow manage to come back to myself. Nostalgia is a vivid and real experience of an encounter with the dead through music. It may be an indispensable experience in our life as it brings up the long-forgotten infans. Nostalgia is a lively physical regression to Another Childhood via song, music and death. It is an overflowing life that resumes living at this very moment.音を聴くというのは、人間の記憶にある何ものかをゆさぶり起こす経験だ。揺さぶり起こされ、うごきだした何ものかは名付けえない。音楽は、ついには語ることのできない何ものか、死に向かって語ろうとする行為で、失敗を繰り返しながら何かを誕生させようとする力のようなものが音楽には宿っているのか。音楽は音でないものをまとっている。音楽を通じてそこで鳴っている音自体とは別様に示されるものとは、言葉では語りえないものだ。音楽において音は、語りえないものがしみ入り交差する死の影といってもよい。そうであるなら死者を懐かしみ思い起こすこと、ノスタルジアとは音楽を通じて死者と出会う鮮烈な実経験であるかもしれない。ヨーロッパ的なサウンド、その内側に入ることができれば、重厚な音楽だったように思う。ほとんどすべての曲が、それぞれの曲のタイトルに明記されているように、誰かへのオマージュになっているようだ。最も短いPeter Kowaldさんへのオマージュである『Off the road』という曲は、このアルバムのなかで短くも非常に印象的であった…もっと読む... Read more...

contrabass solo／cd／commercial free jazz／1982http://www.reverbnation.com/vattelcherryssoulstation【Yumegareki 037】Playing music is, in a way, an act of telling story of our everyday life by using our body and asking the world a question about the body. What impressed me most were the music and words listed at the latter part of the album. They simply express a pure texture of the most important and most basic words for human beings. They can be the sound or words reflecting politics and culture. But at their foundation, all of them seem to be backed by self-recognition and identity. I think music is something that is alive in our daily life. Therefore, the memorable musical words linger deep in our mind. The real feeling of being alive in the world leads directly to the recognition of our existence. Then, music and songs that have been created by taking a lot of time are regarded as the indispensable components in that particular space. At one time, they are the love songs that help share a sense of nostalgia that coexists with a sense of death. On another occasion, they are the wishes for peace, ideal, or the world without war. On other occasions, they emerge as the resistance for survival on a more serious and realistic level and as a conscious expression of human pride. In this way, music is a self-recognition of our deeply rooted existence. But at the same time, it opens up a channel for communication through music. Although music is invisible, it lives by moving through the ruffles of time and space.

“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought – Basho”This is the motto of “Soulstation,” a music group led by Cherry. It is derived from the teaching of Basho Matsuo, one of the greatest haiku poets in Edo period in Japan. Just like Basho lived his life in journey, songs and poems live in human beings. Suppression of songs can deprive people of their identity and even squash them. But music and sighs of songs that are born as a natural consequence of efforts and pains associated with our lives will survive by transforming their forms. When we identify spirits and souls that the men of oldaspired for within music, the music starts breathing in a place away from self-assertiveness. When music opens up to the world without losing its identity and linking to the ideas and words of the men of old, the true sense of being alive in this world gets stronger. I do want to believe at this point in time that music is supported by the spirit of people in various parts of the world who are seeking for something most precious for us and by the awareness that we live as human beings. Spirit of music should be open all the time. This should be remembered in this global information society fully covered by this capitalistic principle.Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought - Basho故人の跡を求めず故人の求めたるところを求めよ（芭蕉） F Vattel Cherryというベーシストは全く知らなかった。Cherryさんはニューヨークで活動していたらしいが、ネットで少しみてみると、ボルチモアの彼の率いる音楽グル―プ『Soulstation』の掲げている格言とは、芭蕉の書いたこの教えらしい。空海の言ったことばでもあるようだ。タイトルの＜is it because I'm black＞はこの教えの言い換えとも受け取れなくもないし、実際聴いてみると、この音楽はこの教えをよく貫こうと努力している演奏であることがわかる。このアルバムはまるごと、まさにベース的身体といえると僕は思う。決して大袈裟な音楽でもないが、ある種の主張をはじめのうちは感じる。だがその主張は気取ってはおらず、気負ってもいない必然的なものなのだとじわじわと感じられてくる。音量を上げてみても楽器の音や録音自体はやせているようにはきこえる。だがそれは見かけのはなしで、演奏者としての音が太いのはすぐにわかる。こういう音楽は即興とは何かとか、技術どうこうという話を先行させる…もっと読む... Read more...